House of Commons Hansard #65 of the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was prorogation.

Topics

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

NDP

The Acting Speaker NDP Denise Savoie

On the same point of order, the hon. member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL

I appreciate the input, Madam Speaker. On the same point of order, yes. What my hon. colleague mentioned was that the quotation was not worthy of the title. In the House we all say that we are not worthy of the title we have. We do it in campaigns. We do it here in the House. It is a function of our jobs. In this particular case, it is the function of the job as Prime Minister that we feel he does not measure up to. I do not believe there is a point of order.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

NDP

The Acting Speaker NDP Denise Savoie

Order, please. I would ask the hon. member to withdraw the remarks.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

I apologize to you, Madam Speaker, and to members of the House for getting a little carried away. I withdraw those remarks. I was raised better than that, to appreciate and respect the office.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

NDP

The Acting Speaker NDP Denise Savoie

I believe that settles the matter. We will now move to questions and comments for a few minutes. The hon. member for Oak Ridges—Markham.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON

Madam Speaker, I did listen to the hon. member's speech and found it somewhat troubling. We have been in government since 2006, and in that time period there has been one motion of non-confidence, which was defeated. We have passed a number of budgets, which were supported by one of the opposition parties. We have passed an economic action plan.

The real reason that this motion is being brought forward right now by the Liberals is because they actually have no policies that Canadians care to listen to. They do not care about national defence. They care more about terrorists than they do about our soldiers. They have no economic action plan. Their policies on taxes are to increase taxes on families and businesses. They want to implement a carbon tax on Canadians and kill business and kill jobs.

The last election was also about prorogation. They were not elected by the people. They were devastated. They got one of the worst results in Canadian history. Yet, the Liberals wanted to foist on Canadians prime minister, their leader, who was massively rejected by people and who Canadians said they did not want and whose policies they did not want. The Liberals wanted to seize government because that is all they care about. They do not care about Canadians. They have no policies, so they bring embarrassing motions--

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

NDP

The Acting Speaker NDP Denise Savoie

Order. I must interrupt the hon. member and give an opportunity to the hon. member for Papineau to respond briefly.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

Madam Speaker, I will just take two seconds, because I could not hear a question there, to respond with the end of my speech.

I got to meet with a group of community activists who were interested in getting their young members of this ethnic community more involved in politics. They said, “One of the problems is, our young people, coming from the home country, are worried that if they help out with an opposition party, they will end up on a list and be banned, and have more difficulty finding work”.

I wanted to respond and say, “This is Canada. That does not happen”. I am not so sure any more, and I could not say anything.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL

Mr. Speaker, according to the ruling from Madam Speaker, I, too, would like to apologize to the House for the comments that were made. I misjudged the comments.

Nonetheless, my colleague who, as the critic for youth, is well aware of the aspect of social networking and how it encompasses young people in this country today as they communicate in ways that are beyond what we could even imagine when we were that age.

What happened here in the prorogation period was that the Conservatives tried to silence the voices that my other colleague spoke about, but the people protested, through social networking to begin with, and the youth of this country became engaged and circumvented that silencing. Through their own initiatives, through volunteer work, they decided that the supremacy of Parliament was just that: supreme. It was circumvented and runs against the way democracies are run.

I would like my colleague to comment on that aspect and how engaged people were and how upset they were when they felt the government was circumventing the rituals that we cherish so much in this Parliament.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's remarks. He is absolutely right when he says that young people, who often get a bad rep for being disengaged and not caring about politics, demonstrated their outrage in huge numbers through the tools that they know so well, the social media, to explain that no, they did not want a government that suspended work when the going got tough.

They wanted to ensure that we were all working hard together, which is why, during the prorogation period that the government imposed upon us, the Liberal Party held over 30 sessions, consulting with Canadians, bringing in young Canadians, bringing in people who were using the empty rooms of this Parliament to talk about the issues that they wanted us to be addressing as parliamentarians.

So we brought forward opportunities for young people to be heard, particularly when we consider that in the last election, for the ages of 18 to 25, the voting turnout was at about 20%. Four out of five young people did not vote in the last election, and for me, that is something we need to turn around. We will only do it by engaging with them openly, responsibly, and by not promoting this culture of cynicism and deceit that this government is known for.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking to this Liberal opposition day motion. It has been a very interesting debate for most of the day, primarily, with the Liberal opposition getting beaten up in an unprecedented fashion.

A couple of days ago I read some quotes in the House about the minority government of Lester Pearson from the 1960s and how successful it was. One of the accounts was prefaced by the words that it was a “chaotic government”. Another one, I think, was “confused”. But both accounts, at the end of the day, and this is the historical record I am referring to, indicated that this was an extremely productive period of time. It may not have seemed like it at the time, but the fact of the matter is that the government, over that period, brought in a new Canadian flag, a medicare system, amalgamated the armed forces, and several other serious pieces of legislation were enacted at that time.

There have been other periods, too, of minority governments that have worked very well, and I have mentioned those before, such as Filmon in Manitoba and Davis in Ontario. And there are probably a lot of other good examples.

However, the public has been trained to believe that somehow a majority government is the ideal. The facts are not borne out by that. After the Pearson government, we had a majority government under Pierre Trudeau. It did not accomplish an awful lot in four years. As a matter of fact, the public was so unimpressed with the first four years that they returned the government in a minority situation with David Lewis and the NDP supporting that government for two years, in which we did get a number of very good pieces of legislation passed.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

An hon. member

Petro-Canada.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

A colleague points out that Petro-Canada was one of the examples of what was accomplished during that minority government.

So, we have all sorts of examples. Actually, we have more examples of where a minority government has actually produced results than we actually do of a majority government. Majority governments tend to be overconfident and actually not be that productive at the end of the day.

The current government, I believe, was an accidental government, in the first place. It was not guaranteed that it was going to become a government in the beginning in 2006. The Conservatives formed the government and they were still following their Republican advisers in how to deal with opposition by being obstructionist in committees and taking the attitude that if they could somehow just manage to make things not work, they could get themselves defeated in two years and then present themselves to the public as innocent victims of a minority government situation, unable to get legislation passed, and somehow they were going to be rewarded with a majority government. Not only that, they set a fixed election date and then proceeded to ignore their own fixed election date and called their own election in September 2008.

Well, look what happened. They ended up with a minority government again because, once again, for the second time in a row, the public did not really trust them. The public is not totally enamoured with them, or their leader, or the results that they have been able to show so far. There is a general lack of direction over there. There is confusion over there. They cannot decided whether they want to make a minority government work to their advantage or whether they want to mess up a minority government so they can go out and argue for a majority situation.

We see that on a daily basis here. We saw them in government in the election of 2008, with the Prime Minister travelling the country, wearing his sweater, saying, “The land is strong. Everything is going fine”. Meanwhile, the stock market was melting down around us, and what did he say? He said it was a buying opportunity. “Go out and buy stocks”, he said, as the markets were plunging.

The Conservatives are totally out of sync with what is happening in the economy. They are totally out of sync with what is happening in the country and the results show it. Within days of coming into power, they brought in their economic update and then wondered why the opposition parties were not happy with the results of their economic update introduction. What did they do? They prorogued the House. That got them through crisis number one.

We would think they would have learned by that close call. I think they were somewhat chastened. They came back in Parliament and we proceeded for another year. It was purely accidental. I really believe that the Prime Minister prorogued the House not really thinking that his numbers would drop a dozen points overnight. He did not anticipate the reaction of the public to what he had done. He created a lot of damage. Not only did he ruin his chances for a quick election after the Olympics and put his numbers down in the basement, but he created a reaction against Conservatives and the government across the country which has still not healed.

Not only that but he wiped out his legislative agenda. Thirty-six bills were wiped out by that measure. It would be humourous if it were not so sad. Nineteen of them were his justice bills, his tough on crime bills.

We do not have to worry about beating up on the government and knocking the government down. It seems to be doing a very good job of destroying itself and suffering from self-inflicted wounds at the end of the day. It does not need the opposition to take it down. It can do that by itself and it has proven it over and over again.

What my leader and our party did when we came back was to bring in a motion in this House, which passed, to deal with this whole issue of prorogation of Parliament. It is not that I believe that the Prime Minister will do it again, but we just feel that it is time to take a look at this issue and ensure that we examine it a little more and set up some guidelines. We know that when the Liberals were in power, they prorogued the House. All governments prorogue the House, but they do so when their agenda is finished. They do not prorogue the House when they are in trouble.

Today several speakers have talked about the 1800s and John A. Macdonald, being the last prime minister who prorogued the House when he was in trouble because he was trying to stop an investigation into scandals with the building of the railway. That is the type of thing we are trying to avoid. The government points to all those times that other governments prorogued. It says, “Look, other governments have done it. We should be able to do it too”. But the reality is that the conditions were totally different. This government prorogued the House to save its own skin.

Our leader brought in a motion, which was passed by the House. It said:

That, in the opinion of the House, the Prime Minister shall not advise the Governor General to prorogue any session of any Parliament for longer than seven calendar days without a specific resolution of this House of Commons to support such a prorogation.

That was passed by the opposition parties in this House.

The chair of the committee spoke today for 20 minutes. The member for Hamilton Centre, our representative on the committee, and other members have described how they and the Liberal members on the committee, the Liberal deputy House leader, the whip and the deputy whip, were happily dealing with the issue for the last three months.

The Liberals have to know that the report will be written in due course. It will arrive in October, November or whenever it arrives and everyone seems to be getting along.

People can imagine our shock when we found out that the Liberals used their last opposition day in the House to showcase not unemployment, MS or other serious issues. I went back to my hotel last night with a file on MS. I thought that was what the Liberals were going to be discussing today. I was told it was coming up.

The other night in the take note debate on MS, the Liberal member, who is very strong on the MS issue, did an excellent job. Just on the strength of the three questions I asked in that four hour period, I already have had a dozen emails from across the country on the issue of MS. People were very interested in that debate. I thought, for once, the Liberals made a smart decision to go with a discussion on MS.

I found out this morning it would be on prorogation. We already have a committee on prorogation and the Liberals have members on that committee. What went wrong? I guess during their garden party last night, they decided to make a change. It was either at the garden party or it was 8:30 this morning.

Let me give the Liberals some advice. It is not a good idea to making crucial decisions at 8:30 in the morning. Most of us are not fully awake at that time and our judgment can be somewhat impaired. Obviously theirs were.

Therefore, they introduced the motion and about 9 o'clock this morning, someone actually read this motion. They realized they would have to produce a report and have it done in six days.

We have members on a committee that have been working on this for three months. The eminent professors and constitutional experts in the country have been brought before the committee and testified. The Liberal members are at the committee, but they decided that it was not good enough. They wanted to set up their own committee and to report in six days. That would be a miracle in the making if they could do something like that.

The Liberals realized that six days was unreasonable, so they decided to amend their motion on the fly, on the floor. For those who have not been watching the debate, the motion reads, and bear in mind we already have such a committee:

That a special committee of the House be hereby established to undertake an immediate study of all relevant issues pertaining to prorogation, including the circumstances in which a request that Parliament be prorogued would be appropriate or inappropriate, and the nature of any rule changes (either by way of the Standing Orders or legislation or both) that may be necessary avoid any future misuse of prorogation;

We have already established, by virtue of the chair and other members of the committee, and virtually every member of the committee, except the three Liberal members on the committee, have actually spoken today, that the limits for the committee are broad enough to cover all eventualities.

Every possible area of this subject can be dealt with by the committee's rules. In fact, it can change the rules if it wants to add in new elements. All the Liberal members have to do is simply go to the next committee meeting and bring the ideas that the authors of this motion today want and they can be added into the process.

The motion says, “that, as a part of this study, the committee take into account the specific proposals for new rules pertaining to prorogation offered by the Leader of the Opposition”, and those ought to be pretty good, “including: (a) a requirement that the Prime Minister give Parliament written notice in advance of any request to prorogue”, and that is reasonable.

It goes on to say:

together with his/her reasons therefore; (b) a requirement that there be a debate in the House of Commons after any such notice is given, but before any request for prorogation is made; (c) a requirement that the express consent of the House of Commons be obtained at the conclusion of any such debate if (i) fewer than 12 months have passed since the last Speech from the Throne, (ii) the requested prorogation is for a period of more than 30 days, or (iii) an issue of confidence is outstanding before the House; and (d) a provision that allows committees of Parliament to continue to function during any prorogation; and

Then the Liberals came in with their amendment, which said:

—that the special committee also take into account any report on prorogation that may be forthcoming from the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, and provide an analysis of the consequences of the use of prorogation as a device to avoid accountability or to silence voices that may wish to express disagreement with the government;

All these things have already been covered by this committee for the last three months. The Liberals then go on to talk about the content of the committee, how it would be comprised of 11 members, including 5 members from the government party, 3 members from the opposition, 2 from the Bloc and 1 from the NDP, provided that the chair be from the official opposition.

As the chair pointed out, we will have the existing chair at this committee and we will appoint a new committee now with the chair being appointed from the Liberals. We will have a Liberal chair and we will have to pay that chair $11,165 plus the cost of bringing all those same witnesses we just heard from back again for another go around.

This is absolutely insane. No wonder the government is having its chuckles today at the Liberals' expense. I know it is having a great day. However, it should not be having a great day because it does not deserve one.

The amendment continues, “that the committee have all of the powers of a Standing Committee as provided in the Standing Orders”. That is exactly what we have already. Once again, there is more duplication. It goes on say, “that the members to serve on the said committee be appointed by the Whip of each party”. By the way, the whip is already on the committee. This whip is going to appoint members to the second committee as well. It goes on to say, “each party depositing with the Clerk of the House a list of his or her party's members of the committee no later than June 23, 2010”.

The Liberals then talk about membership substitutions. I guess the most important part of this is they are deleting June 23 and putting November 2 as the date. That gives the government a lot of time to have an election in the meantime, or maybe even prorogue the House again for all we know.

This is the sad state of affairs that we find ourselves in on the last day of the sitting of the House. I only wish the Liberal caucus members would take a little stronger stand. I do not blame the Liberal caucus members. I do not think any of them really had a clue what was coming down today. I am sure they are going to be taking this back to their next caucus meeting, trying to find out just what went wrong.

They are probably wondering why they gave up a perfectly good opposition motion on MS, or why they gave up a perfectly good opposition motion that had traction and was a great idea. They did a great job on it a few days ago. Why did they mess up and bring in a motion like this, which will not make it through the House of Commons, and it should not. It is simply a duplication of what we have right now.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:50 p.m.

Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia Manitoba

Conservative

Steven Fletcher ConservativeMinister of State (Democratic Reform)

Mr. Speaker, I would like to address some of the issues the member raised. First, the government is having a great day as is everyone who is a Canadian. Being a Canadian implies and means they are having a great day.

Second, the member talked about Republicanism at the beginning of his comment. I take offence to that. I am a monarchist and that is about as far away from Republicanism as one can get, so I hope the member reflects on that.

I want to point the great initiatives on democratic reform that the government is undertaking, from term limits for senators, to expanded voting opportunities, representation by population, getting tough on political loans. Canadians are asking for these to be passed. That is exactly what the government is doing, including bringing forward legislation on Senate elections, which has been a long-time demand of the people of Canada.

My question for the member deals with the Liberal Party. He is quite critical of the Liberal Party. It seems the Liberal Party is in great disarray. Look at what happened with the immigration bill that the NDP, the Bloc and this government came together to work on with great success and yet the Liberals were all over the map. They were left, they were right, back and forward, they did not know which direction they were going. Would the member agree that the Liberal Party is in complete disarray?

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:50 p.m.

NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I guess it is a question of relativity as to which one of the two coalition partners in the House are the most disorganized. I have seen the government trying to recover from the prorogation debacle of a few months ago where it torched its 36 bills, 19 tough on crime bills. Does it bring them all back in at the beginning of the session like it should have to allow the opposition to pick and choose which ones it wants to pass? No. The Conservatives wait on the pardon legislation and call it two days before the end of the session. If that is not either just plan stupidity or brinkmanship, I am not sure which one, but it has to be one of the two.

I would not take the view that somehow the Liberals are a bunch of incompetents here. The Conservatives are the government. They are supposed to be organized. They are supposed to have their legislative agenda in order and are responsible for getting things through.

I really want to compliment them and the minister for his refugee bill. He did a great job on that as did Parliament. We need more of that. I ask the government to live up to what Pearson did when he was in a minority situation. It should set some goals and try to attain them rather than to try to torch committees and short-circuit the process and cause all kinds of problems. Why does the government not set a goal to get some real legislation through—

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

I am going to stop the member there to allow a couple more questions and comments.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:55 p.m.

Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont Alberta

Conservative

Mike Lake ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his rant. I have a couple of questions. I am reading the How They Vote Website. I notice the hon. member has more words spoken in the House than the next three members combined. Therefore, I am tempted to ask him if he knows we do not get paid by the word in the House of Commons, but I will not ask him.

Instead, I will ask about a couple of interesting quotes that I read recently. One comes from the Liberal leader. He wrote this in The New York Times magazine. He wrote, “politics is theater. It is part of the job to pretend to have emotions that you do not actually feel”. We have seen that with this opposition day motion and some of the speeches we have heard from the Liberal side today.

Another quote is by the son of a former Liberal prime minister, the member for Papineau who talked about his leader saying:

—he’s a little all over the place sometimes. He says this, he says that — he contradicts himself. For me, he’s not someone with...maybe he has the intelligence, but maybe not the wisdom required.

Maybe this opposition day motion is an example of this. Could the member comment on that?

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:55 p.m.

NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to say this because it will be my last chance to make a speech or comment in this session of the House since we are planning to finish today. I have been here for 20 months now and have had a very great time after spending 23 years in the provincial legislature. I am very aware that I did not get a chance to say proper goodbyes when I was a provincial member because the election came about so suddenly. I am also aware we are in a minority government and there is a possibility we may not be back in the fall.

If that eventuality were to happen, I want to say that I have had a terrific 20 months. I have been thrilled to work with everyone here. I hope to be back after the next election, do not get me wrong. However, it has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I would recommend being a member of Parliament to anyone in the country.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:55 p.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL

Mr. Speaker, very briefly, I would like to thank the member for his speech, his passion and on the note he just went out on, I would just like to say congratulations to him.

Yes, he is number one on how they vote, and yes, he is quite well out there. As a matter of fact, I am number two and I am closing in. Well, not really.

He does not get paid by the word, but he certainly does invest a great amount of time in his work. I have yet to see the man stand in this House and off the cuff try to talk about something he knows nothing about. He is always well prepared. I hope he has a wonderful summer.

But he should look out. I am number two and I am going for number one, although I do not know if there is enough time in this session to do that. Nonetheless, I wish him a great summer. I look forward to hearing him again when we come back in the fall.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:55 p.m.

NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member. I really appreciate my time with the member, too. I expect we will talking to one another many more times in this House.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:55 p.m.

Peterborough Ontario

Conservative

Dean Del Mastro ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage

Mr. Speaker, I do note that the member is up in the House quite a bit. I wonder how much dead air we would have in this place if he were not here. There is certainly lots of hot air.

I listened to the speech. I did not get an opportunity to ask a question of the member for Papineau when he made his intervention. I was in a conversation with the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

What I heard and what I see in this motion today is nothing but platitudes. To me voters demand substance. I may not agree with the member, but I would agree with the previous member who said that he comes in well researched, with substance and argues his points. I often disagree with him.

However, I was absolutely astounded by the speech that went on for 10 minutes and dealt with zero substance. Voters want substance, not platitudes.

I would ask the hon. member if he thinks this motion today is really about platitudes and has absolutely nothing to do with the substance that voters want to see from this House.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

6 p.m.

NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I think the Liberals made an error, but all parties could do that.

It is not up to us to tell them what they should choose for their opposition motions. Parties have the right to pick and choose their own battles. This was probably not the proper subject for them to be battling today. There are a lot of other topics that they could have picked. I mentioned MS as an example. There is unemployment and a lot of different issues that could be discussed.

I just think it was the wrong choice.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

6 p.m.

Conservative

Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am sharing my time with the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry.

I rise today to speak to this motion on prorogation that has been proposed by the hon. member for Wascana. This motion calls for a study of the issues related to prorogation, including the examination of the nature of any rule changes that may be necessary to avoid a future misuse of prorogation.

Many of my colleagues have already pointed out that the procedure and House affairs committee has been studying this issue for the past three months. It has heard from 16 witnesses, constitutional experts and others, who have overwhelmingly recommended that we not do anything to change the rules regarding prorogation because we could inadvertently make the situation worse.

I would note that prorogation is a legitimate tool for resetting Parliament and it allows the opportunity to consult with Canadians. From that perspective, prorogation has been extremely useful to our government to deal with the economic circumstances of the past year. While opposition members were on the Hill during that time talking to each other, many of my colleagues on this side of the House were talking to Canadians about the real issues they were facing, economic issues and other issues they were concerned about.

Rather than revisit many of the points that have already been made so well by my colleagues on this side of the House, I would like to illustrate some of the activities I was involved in during the last weeks of January and into February while Parliament was prorogued.

I had the opportunity to meet with a number of grade five and six students in my riding. It was interesting to hear how engaged and interested they are in what happens in Parliament.

Then there was a very sad time. I attended the funeral of Yvonne Martin, who was one of the members of a work team that travelled to Haiti. She was a nurse. She was the first Canadian whose body was recovered from the rubble. My community rallied in support of the Martin family at that time. An overwhelmingly large number of people turned out for her funeral, to pay their respects and to thank Yvonne for her efforts in helping the people of Haiti. I can say that from her example, many others are continuing to travel to Haiti with short-term mission teams to help rebuild that devastated country.

On another day I had breakfast with the Mennonite Economic Development Associates, which is an agency that does micro-credit work in many of the developing countries. That agency provides very small loans to entrepreneurs in Afghanistan and other countries.

For example, a mother might get a loan of $100 or $200 to purchase a sewing machine, after which she is able to sew garments for her family and to sell. Before long, she has enough money not only to repay her loan so that the money can be sent off to another person who needs a loan, but she can hire some of her own family and community members, and the cycle continues. Another job is created and there is another opportunity for economic development so people in developing countries can be provided opportunities, not for a handout that will help them for a short time, but to actually change their lives for good.

That same day, I had lunch with the Community Futures Development Corporation board in my riding. In the morning I met with a micro-credit agency that does international development work and later in the same day I had the opportunity to meet with the Community Futures Development Corporation which provides micro-credit here at home. It provides loans, capital, to entrepreneurs to allow them to expand their businesses and in the process create jobs.

The number of jobs that have been created through the Community Futures Development Corporation in the rural areas of Canada is simply amazing. This is one of the best stories that we should be telling. It is creating opportunities to help entrepreneurs expand and create more jobs.

Later that week, I spoke at a church in my riding and then I participated in Family Literacy Day. It was great to learn about the opportunities being given to young people to develop their literacy skills.

One of the things that I enjoy most about my time in the riding is attending new citizen ceremonies. People who have lived in Canada for three or more years have applied for citizenship and now comes the big day when they come to the ceremony to be sworn in as new citizens. There is nothing like standing in front of a group of 50 new citizens as they raise their hands and take the oath of Canadian citizenship, to see the joy in their eyes, and to listen to them sing O Canada after that ceremony. There is very little about my job that I enjoy more than going to those new citizenship ceremonies and welcoming them. Afterwards there is the opportunity to speak not only to them and their family members, but to many of the community members who helped them in their journey. Maybe they came as refugees. Maybe they came as immigrants with a job. In every case, they have had someone here who has walked with them through those first weeks, months and years to get established here in Canada. It is a great opportunity to thank those people on behalf of the Government of Canada.

I also had the opportunity to tour a number of businesses in my riding, to listen to their concerns about taxation.

I visited a farm in our area that is doing great work. The people in the agriculture community really are unsung heroes in many ways, with the high quality food and the consistent supply of safe food they provide for Canadians. It is amazing to see the work that these people do.

Then that afternoon, I visited a company called Intelligent Mechatronic Systems. This company creates a little gadget that fits in a car. When a BlackBerry is inserted into it, it reads people's emails as they are travelling. With the new laws in Ontario, people are not able to use their cell phones as they are driving. This little machine will answer the cell phone, and will read emails out loud. People can actually read an email into the machine and it will send that email on. The technology is simply astounding.

Again, another opportunity I had that week was to tour Elmira Pet Products.

I also met with a number of different constituents for appointments in my riding.

Then that evening, I was able to give a speech to the German Canadian Business and Professional Association.

The next day, I met for breakfast with Nursing on the International Front. It is a group which is doing nursing in developing countries, great work.

Then I had the opportunity that afternoon to work at the Mennonite Central Committee packing relief kits for Haiti and to see the number of volunteers who were working together to put together the relief kits, packing towels, soap and toothpaste, the essentials that people in Haiti needed. The interesting part about packing these kits is that they were not being packed in cardboard boxes or something that would be thrown out. They were being packed in five-gallon plastic pails with a snap lid so that after the materials were used from within the pail, the pail could be used to get water. We know how important it is to have clean water. Those pails would be put to great use.

Then I served two days, while Parliament was prorogued, holding passport clinics in my riding. This is an opportunity to offer a service to our constituents who may not have access to passport clinics in the middle of the city. Over 200 passport applications were processed during those two days. People's photos were taken. They were helped with filling out the applications. We know how intimidating it can be when confronted with all that paper. Where does one start? At the end of the process the applications were put into envelopes, sealed, and they were brought to Ottawa. Three weeks later, people got their passports. It was a great response.

I could go on. I hosted a number of coffee talks during that time, as well. I heard from ordinary Canadians about their concerns. One of their main concerns was taxation for small businesses. They do not want a tax system that burdens them and that is a disincentive to creating jobs.

To conclude, I would like to urge members to strongly oppose the motion that is before us today. For one thing, as I said when I started out, this motion is totally redundant. The committee on procedure and House affairs has done its study. We are almost ready to write a report.

To waste all the energy and time the committee, our chairman, and the members across the way have put in, and the expense to call those witnesses back to this place and to redo the report is simply redundant.

I urge members to please reject this motion.

Opposition Motion—ProrogationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

6:10 p.m.

NDP

Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's speech. I know that we cannot pick the motion for the other parties, but I would like the member's opinion on why he thinks the Liberal Party did not pick an opposition day motion on jobs, for example, or CPP, health care, or MS. The Liberals had a good discussion the other night about MS. They could have talked about the oil sands, which comes up a lot here in the House of Commons. They could even have talked about the blue ribbon panel they set up with the Conservatives after prorogation.

I would like the hon. member to tell me what he thinks about the choice of the opposition day motion.